PROPERTY: Easements

SPOUSES JESUS and AIDA CASTRO v SPOUSES FELIMON AND LORNA

ESPERANZA
G.R. No. 248763 March 11, 2020 FIRST DIVISION (Lazaro-Javier J.)
DOCTRINE: Easement is a real right on another’s property, corporeal and
immovable, whereby the owner of the latter must refrain from doing or allowing
somebody else to do or something to be done on his property, for the benefit of
another person or tenement. Easements are established either by law, referred
to as legal easements, or by the will of the owner, known as voluntary
easements.
The owner of an estate may claim a legal or compulsory right of way
upon the establishment of the existence of the following requisites: (1) the estate
is surrounded by other immovables and is without adequate outlet to a public
highway; (2) after payment of the proper indemnity; (3) the isolation was not
due to the proprietor’s own acts; and (4) the right of way claimed is at a point
least prejudicial to the servient estate.
FACTS:
Spouses Felimon and Lorna Esperanza alleged that they are the absolute
owners of Lot No. 2759-C-A. On the other hand, Spouses Jesus and Aida
Castro are the owners of Lot Nos. 2759-C-2-B-7, 2759-C-2-B-5 and 2759-C-2-
B-6, situated in the same area. Spouses Esperanza acquired their property from
Nestor Raluya through a Deed of Absolute Sale which emphasized that the dry
creek was the means to access the national highway.
Lot 2759-C-2-B-12, known as the “Foot Path” lies between Spouses
Esperanza’s lot and Spouses Castro’s three lots, which is used as an ingress
and egress from the national highway. Spouses Castro constructed an
interlinked wire fence and closed off the foot path. They were demanded to
desist from closing off the road but were ignored. Spouses Castro countered
that Spouses Esperanza’s property was bounded on the east by a dry creek,
which they had been using for a long time, that the foot path did not exist when
Spouses Esperanza acquired their respective lot, that they had to enclose their
properties with a fence to protect their interests, and that they had spent
P200,000.00 for the footpath without any contribution from Spouses
Esperanza.
Spouses Esperanza then filed a petition for mandatory injunction with
damages against Spouses Castro.
ISSUE:
Are Spouses Esperanza entitled to use the foot path?
RULING:
Yes. The footpath was a voluntary easement constituted by Nestor
Reluya. The separate title to the foot path was retained by Reluya and later on

1
passed to his heirs after his death. There is no showing that the heirs of Reluya
had withdrawn the right-of-way. Although the dry creek had been turned into a
gravel road, the foot path has not lost its nature as a voluntary easement which
benefits respondents and third persons. Spouses Castro cannot claim the foot
path as their own as to exclude third persons from using it.
The opening of an adequate outlet to a highway can only extinguish legal
or compulsory easements, not voluntary easements. The fact that an easement
by grant may have also qualified as an easement of necessity does not detract
from its permanency as a property right, which survives the termination of the
necessity.